WMU CELCIS holds writing class
at University of Tokyo

 
CELCIS Master Faculty Specialist Tom Marks displaying
a Japanese hand towel representing the University of Tokyo
presented to him by the class on the last day.

In January 2009, CELCIS Master Faculty Specialist Tom Marks traveled to the University of Tokyo, Japan’s number one ranked university, to teach an intensive Academic Writing course to graduate students and instructors at the university.

The one-week course was designed to help students improve their academic papers and prepare them for publication in scholarly journals. This joint University of Tokyo - CELCIS program was developed through a WMU Soga Japan Center initiative. This is the second year of the program.

"It is such a joy to teach these students," Marks said. "Not only do they absorb the lessons quickly, but their dedication towards improving each other's essays is inspiring. I always leave with several new ideas for teaching writing at CELCIS, and of course, being in Tokyo is a
treat."

Marks and some of his University of Tokyo students

The Academic Writing class was sponsored by Professor Shimazono (Department of Religious Studies) and Professor Ichinose (Department of Philosophy), as part of a possible five-year series of classes for the Center for Death and Life Studies program, the first of which occurred in March 2008. Professor Shimazono is the program leader of the Center for Death and Life Studies at to the University of Tokyo, which explores the areas where issues of religion, bioethics, and death intersect.

"Todai is Japan’s Harvard," said Dr. Stephen G. Covell, associate professor of comparative religion and director of WMU's Soga Japan Center. "Our ability to develop a course for their graduate students to advance their writing abilities speaks very highly of WMU and CELCIS.  The program is a break through in that it serves as a model for other possible programs that we can develop with our partner universities in Japan.  I have received a lot of positive feedback from Todai about the program, none more positive than their strong desire to repeat the program next year for a third year." 

A thoughtful critique is given to each
student's paper during class sessions

Marks with some of his class at Akamon (Red Gate),
a famous entrance to the University of Tokyo

The Academic Writing class is tentatively scheduled to meet for a third time in January 2010.

The students and their paper topics

Satoshi Fukuma, Ph.D, Researcher – Constructivism about Moral Values

Kyoko Yoshida, COE Researcher – Shi’ite Du’a (supplicating prayer)

Seiichi Takeuchi, Research Fellow – The Significance of Communication in a Medical Act

Atsushi Tsuchiya, Research Fellow – Factors Determining public interest in Human Enhancement Technologies

Ken Shibushita – Writing and Language change in Q’eqchi’

Takuma Ito – Filippo Strozzi and His Tomb in Santa Maria Novella

Hatsumi Takemura – Female Impurity and Procreative Power in the Classical Hawaiian Cosmology

Hiroyuki Yorozuya – Manipulationism and Causal Republicanism

Norihasa Baba – Doctrinal Expressions in the Northern Four Agumas

Tomokiyo Nomura – Berkeley on Notion and Demonstration

Tomomi Asakura – On Buddhistic Ontology